Risky Business (1983)

I honestly didn't realise Tom Cruise looked absolutely handsome when he was younger. There are scenes that can really confuse you like the girl he was hooking up wanted $300 and then when he couldn't get it and then he finds out who she was, she didn't want it. Also Guido takes his stuff and asks him for money, he probably should've called the police to be honest with you. I mean, it didn't make sense for him to be bribed like that, it really is stressful and dangerous for a young kid like him to be in that situation.Near the ending, when things were back to normal and in the right places, the mother was such a wimp just because there was a small crack on her glass egg. Such a stupid scene to have in this type of movie or even the script on that note was quite stupid! That's the only massive hiccup that cheesed me off with this film! Ill give this movie a 7/10, it was an OK film but that part I told ya about,threw me off a little bit....

It may be difficult for some, and for the younger ones the context is not there, but do you remember when Tom Cruise really gave a full PERFORMANCE? By this I mean in a movie where he had to play at a full range of emotions and explore a character who has to face real obstacles and has an arc that takes him on a journey from one place in his life to another - in this case the "coming of age" story, perhaps some pun intended- but one that didn't require him to run away from explosions or kill people (I won't say he doesn't run at all in this movie, though here it's for things like making sure he's not late to school)? This is one of them, the one that made him a star, and it's clear to see why as we see him as Joel start out in a rather simple position - a teenager with girls on his mind (or, more accurately, sex) but with some neuroses and doubts - and through some decisions involving the idea of "hey, f*** it" gets in way over his head.Risky Business is the kind of film that might not be able to get made today; imagine a studio exec hearing a pitch that involved a teenager getting a call girl, let alone setting up basically a (brief) brothel out of his house, to pay off some very bad luck moments and decisions he gets in to with the Rebecca Demornay character (and Joe Pantoliano, what a great heel he gets to play the hell out of! every moment's a delight that he's on screen). It probably would be laughed off, or told it wouldn't make much money. I'm glad someone took a chance on it at the time, since it holds up today. For the most part. As long as you meet it halfway, which isn't too hard. Indeed Brickman's tone as a filmmaker is to make things feel rather serious and grounded in the style so that when their is humor, and there's a lot, it comes out of awkward tension and behavior.It has a constantly fascinating mix of comedy and drama not unlike The Graduate. No, it's not in that league, but Brickman swings for the fences as far as depicting as honestly as he can under the circumstances he sets up for himself (which are a little just pre-John Hughes world, it IS Illinois by the way so the milieu is somewhat the same). You feel the struggle that Joel has, and hope that he can get out of his predicament, though at the same time he keeps getting into more precarious waters. It's relatable, especially if anyone ever got into just a little trouble as a younger person, which I assume are most of you. It's simply that Risky Business takes things further and further along.And it's sexy. Boy is it a sexy looking, sounding (Tangerine Dream's score is wonderful), and acted and performed. But it also finds the humor in sex too, how absurd it is to suddenly see about a dozen beautiful women come through a door, one by one. So if you want to see a studio dramedy that takes chances with an early Tom Cruise performance where he's acting his ass off, this is one. You have to suspend your disbelief, such as for how things like money transactions with prostitutes actually work and how it seems like ALL of the male high schoolers and ALL the attractive call girls just happen to be around and willing to go for it over one night), but as the film plays you really don't question things too much and can go with the fun and real *stakes* that this very R-rated story has.It's comical, thrilling, and it takes genuinely surprising turns that come naturally from plants and payoffs in the story. Risky Business is not at all what I expected, which was just some goofy and dopey teen comedy (the iconic, yes, iconic, shot of Tom Cruise in the underwear doing the first lip-sync battle with no one to Bob Seger was all I really knew about it), and what I got is a movie for adults that happens to have teenagers as the main characters.

Teen sex comedies took a giant step forward at the same time Tom Cruise made his play for superstardom in this sly, winning film about a boy who shakes off the shackles of respectable suburban life and says "What the heck," or words to that effect.Joel Goodsen (Cruise) is a high-school senior given charge of his parents' stately Glencoe, Illinois mansion while they visit a sick aunt. Prodded by his obnoxious, Harvard-bound pal Miles (Curtis Armstrong), Joel takes Dad's car out for a spin, then gets really adventurous by inviting call girl Lana (Rebecca De Mornay) over for a night of costly sin. How costly? His mother's priceless decorative egg, for starters. To make it up, Joel is forced to latch on with the world's oldest profession to cut his losses."Risky Business" is an amusing charmer with a sleek underbelly that slides against the grain of the American dream. All Joel wants to do is make his parents proud by getting into Princeton. Throughout the film, Joel's lifestyle is mocked for its easy manner. Even if Miles is wrong in his advice (something Miles himself breezily admits later), the message of the movie seems to be that Joel needs to shake himself out of his comfortable rut before it becomes his tomb."I'd really appreciate it if you'd stop laying these little judgments on me while you're leaning on your daddy's $40,000 car," Lana says to him at one point, just before she sends the car into Lake Michigan.De Mornay makes the strongest impression in the film, from her unforgettable entrance standing nude in Joel's living room to her hooded, defensive manner whenever Joel presses her about his missing egg. At one point in the DVD commentary, Cruise talks about the music of Tangerine Dream as "cool, yet it has a soulful, kind of haunting quality." This seems an apt description of De Mornay's performance, too, a woman who sells her favors for $300 a night but speaks forthrightly when she says: "Nobody owns me."Director-writer Paul Brickman gives his film a hypnotic, dreamy tone, from the opening credits where Chicago at night becomes a glittery slo-mo vision to Joel's opening dream sequence, which lays out the central premise of the film, of sex as destroyer of professional ambitions. Joel walks into a bathroom where a beautiful girl is showering, but as he follows her he finds himself at a college boards exam, where he is already three hours late.Speaking of big entrances, Joe Pantoliano shines as Guido, Lana's pimp with a velvet manner and a gun. His scenes with Joel are funny for the rage Guido doesn't express, as he keeps telling Joel he's smart and "I like you," even while making ruin of the boy's life.Brickman had trouble with Warner Brothers getting the film he wanted released; in the end, the last minutes of the film were slightly altered to give Joel and Lana a happier sendoff. It's still a strong ending, as Cruise can be heard telling Brickman in the commentary; the overall message about capitalism's way of getting people to sell themselves short still stands. The bite is still there, only the fangs are a little less sharp.I like the theatrical ending better; "Risky Business" as is often risks being too serious for its own good. As it is, there's a lot of business in the middle section that I could do without, as Joel's problems accumulate and his angst is played out as very real. I'm more at ease with the darker material used for antic comedy, like the big hooker convention Joel winds up hosting, and his interview with the Princeton representative (Richard Masur, nicely underplaying his character's own little judgments about Joel).Oh, yeah, and there's that Bob Seger number Joel does in the living room, which takes up a minute of screen time but has come to dominate our memory of the film. It's a good little moment from a good little film, not the greatest ever made, but better than anyone had a right to expect. While dated in places, it still stands up today.

Left alone in the wealthy northern Chicago suburbs with the family house and Porsche at his disposal, Joel, through his scheming friends, finds himself entertaining call girl Lana. After meeting Joel's enthusiastic friends, Lana spots a business opportunity, and suggests bringing in some of her equally stunning colleagues. Joel is initially against such an idea, at least until the Porsche accidentally falls into Lake Michigan, requiring a quick infusion of ready cash......With such an illustrious career, probably one of the biggest successes in Hollywoods history, it's clear that Cruise is not just a bona-fide movie star, the man is a living legend.And then there's this film.....I must be missing something, I know that this kick-started his career into the stratospheric place it is now, but it's one of the most abhorrent, dislikable roles he's ever played.He basically plays a smug little rich boy who gets done over by a pimp and has to make ex amount of cash before his parents get home.Despite the screen presence he has in this, it's impossible to care about the situation he's got himself into because there is no empathetic repercussions to he character. in fact, he almost takes advantage of his situation to start the titular hobby.So if you want to watch a film where a smug little rich boy thinks about turning his back on education for all the wrong reasons, then this is for you.I found myself getting more angrier as the film went on.